


The Ever After...

by Digitalwave



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Gen, M/M, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 04:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1537406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Digitalwave/pseuds/Digitalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That wasn't the end of their story.<br/>Note: This is a continuation of my Bucky/Steve story, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1481197"><b>Til the End of the Line...</b></a>. This can stand alone but you might want to read that first.  :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ever After...

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters in this story remain the property of themselves and their related production companies. None of the pretties belong to me, I'm only borrowing them.

The first morning Bucky woke up in Steve's apartment he was confused as hell. It wasn't that he didn't know where he was, he did. Steve had brought him there after they'd made sure Dodger was resting okay at the clinic they'd taken him to. He'd been the one to convince Bucky that sleeping in the chair wouldn't do either of them any good and that he could deal with things better after he'd gotten some real rest. After the second time he'd almost fallen out of said chair he'd been forced to agree.

It wasn't that he'd woken up in an honest to god bed, either. It'd been a while but he still had vague recollections of what that was like. None of the ones he remembered through the fog of days stretched out behind him had ever felt this good, though.

No, what rattled him, what left him feeling like he should run, get the fuck out of there and never stop, was that for the first time in as long as his muddled mind could remember it felt like home. The smells, the quality of light streaming through the window, hell, even the creaks the old building made as it settled around him, screamed 'home' at him like nothing else had in a very, very long time.

The thing that did it the most though? The one aspect that kept him lying in bed in this particular old Brooklyn apartment? It was the man sleeping in the too small chair beside him, chin tucked up tight against his chest, blond hair sticking up in all kinds of crazy directions. Something in his pose brought back phantom thoughts of other days spent like this, only with their roles reversed. Memories rose unbidden of a much younger, smaller, version of the man who slept beside him like he wasn't just a weapon. Like Steve remembered days before when he'd been a real boy, too.

Had those times actually happened? Was he, Steve, right? Was he really the Bucky that he said he was once, a lifetime ago? Part of it felt alien, just a last cruel lie in a long unending list of them, stretched out over the years. But, part of it, felt right. Felt like a tiny spark of warmth deep down in his soul where only Winter had lived for so, so long.

That was the part he clung to, that was the part he held close to his thundering heart as his voice, rusty with silence and not his own any more, spoke a single word. "Steve?"

The other man stirred, awake in just an instant. A slow smile grew across Steve's face as his too sharp eyes caught Bucky's. Bucky knew that blue, remembered that goofy grin from a thousand different mornings, just like this. Maybe that boy he'd seen staring back at him at the Smithsonian did still exist somewhere. Maybe they could look for him, together. Maybe he really had come home.


End file.
